Blame the Russian Olympics for 2014's Oscar Race Getting Too Long Again

Get ready for a (slightly) extended Oscar race next year. As if the cycle of shifting film favorites and ceaseless promotion wasn't (slightly) long enough for you in the Oscar season that pretty much just ended, the Academy announced today that the show is moving back to March—March 2 to be precise. And, yes, somewhere, somehow, this is Russia's fault.

It's going to be a particularly busy winter in 2014. The Oscar ceremony was in all likelihood scheduled for March to avoid overlap with the Winter Olympics, which will run from February 7 through 23 in Sochi. The Associated Press reported back in February that "planners [were] already struggling with the timing for next year's show in what could be a very early and very late awards season."

Meanwhile, the Oscar race got some heat today as The Weinstein Company set a December 27 release date for Nicole Kidman-starring Grace of Monaco. That combination of release date, distributor, star, and topic screams awards bait. Looks like Harvey Weinstein has about 66 days to win Best Actress for Kidman — or about half as long as it took The Master to go from favorite to forgotten in the 2012-2013 Oscar hype cycle, and twice as long as it took Argo to be the presumed favorite pretty much everywhere.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.